A MASSIVE fire engulfed a Russian nuclear submarine in an Arctic shipyard yesterday, but there has been no radiation leak or injuries, officials said.

A massive fire engulfed a Russian nuclear submarine in an Arctic shipyard today, but there has been no radiation leak or injuries, officials said.

Fire broke out on a Russian nuclear submarine as it was awaiting repairs at an Arctic shipyard, officials said today.

ONCE NATO gave military support to those Libyans who wished to depose Col Muammar Gaddafi, the tyrant who had run that country as a plaything for 42 years, his fate was sealed.

Investigators were today searching for flight recorders in the shattered remains of an airliner that crashed on the banks of the Volga River, killing 43 people including most of one of Russia's premier hockey teams.

EVERY revolution has its casualties and the fate of deposed tyrants may not always be a priority for those who deposed them.

IRISH entrepreneurs helped Qatari football chiefs keep cool heads in their successful bid for World Cup 2022.

RUSSIA basked in the limelight yesterday as the future first-time host of the World Cup in 2018, but media questioned how the country will pay the bill which they said could reach €37 billion.

India’s prime minister today insisted it is time for peace with neighbouring Pakistan, but warned that relations between the two nuclear-armed rivals were still “under considerable stress” in the wake of last year’s terror attack in Mumbai.

China and Russia sought greater international clout at a summit today, with China promising a multi-billion dollar loan to Central Asian countries, while Russia challenged the dominance of the US dollar as a global reserve currency.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has arrived in Russia to attend a regional security summit at a time when controversy over his victory in elections has drawn huge protests at home.

The last czar and his murdered family were victims of political repression, a Russian Supreme Court appeals panel declared today.

DNA tests carried out by a US laboratory prove that remains exhumed last year belong to two children of Czar Nicholas II, putting to rest questions about what happened to Russia’s last royal family, a regional governor said yesterday.

A MATHS puzzle that baffled the top minds in the esoteric field of symbolic dynamics for nearly four decades has been cracked — by a 63-year-old immigrant who once had to work as a security guard.

LONDON accused Moscow of “reprehensible” conduct yesterday after the British Council suspended the operation of Russian offices following a secret police crackdown on the cultural body.

A BRITISH cultural organisation reopened offices in two Russian cities yesterday in defiance of an order to close, drawing an angry response from Russia, which called the decision a “deliberate provocation” and promised punitive measures.

Russia responded angrily today to Britain’s defiance of its order to close two offices of a cultural organisation.

British Council offices in two Russian cities opened without incident today following a holiday break, despite Moscow’s warnings that defying a closure order would worsen already tense relations.

There is a “high probability” that bones found recently in Russia belonged to a daughter and son of the last czar, an official said today.

The remains of the last tsar’s son and heir to the Russian throne, missing since the royal family was gunned down nine decades ago by Bolsheviks in a basement, may have been found, an archaeologist said.

AIRTOURS has a number of specials ex-Dublin to Greece, saving as much as €400 to various destinations.

ROBERT HEFFERNAN will be looking for the performance of a lifetime when he faces double European champion, Francisco Fernandez, in the 5,000m walk at the Irish Indoor Championships at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast tomorrow, with Gillian O’Sullivan also looking for something special.

A former Russian security service officer said in a letter from prison released today that he had warned former spy Alexander Litvinenko years ago that the KGB’s main successor agency had formed a death squadron to kill him and other Kremlin foes.

Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the Defence Ministry in Moscow today to register their anger over a bullying incident in which a conscript was so badly injured that his legs and genitals had to be amputated.

A spell of Arctic cold claimed five more lives in Moscow overnight, pushing Russia’s nationwide toll beyond 40 and killing five people in Estonia and Moldova, delaying trains and slowing traffic, officials said today.

A persistent spell of extreme cold has caused more deaths among Russians stranded on frigid streets but failed to freeze the spirits of thousands who plunged into ice water for an annual ritual marking a Russian Orthodox Christian holiday.

Racism and xenophobia are growing at an alarming rate in Russia, rights groups said today, problems fuelled by economic hardship and what they say is the government’s failure to come up with a plan for reducing ethnic tensions.

A RUSSIAN schoolboy whose parents let him play computer games all day as a reward for good grades has died after a marathon session brought on an epileptic fit.

British Airways CEO Rod Eddington has called on Russia to abandon charging all airlines for flying in its airspace.

Russia's Civil Aviation Authority has confirmed that everyone on board the airliner which crashed in Siberia has been killed.

All the 133 passengers and 10 crew on board a plane which crashed in Siberia are feared dead.